Mexican Open: Tsitsipas makes quarter-finals, guarantees top 10 return

Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas, the No 5 seed, reached the quarter-finals of the Mexican Open by beating Italian qualifier Flavio Cobolli 6-3, 7-6 (6) at the Princess Mundo Imperial Resort in Acapulco on Wednesday night.

The victory also ensures that the former world No 3 will return to the world’s top 10 on Monday, having fallen out of the group earlier in the month. Currently, Tsitsipas sits at No 9 in the live rankings, and could climb as high as seventh equal in the ATP rankings with a deep run in Acapulco.

It’s not an easy mountain to climb being 5-2 down and having your opponent serve twice.

Stefanos Tsitsipas on trailing 5-2 in the second set tiebreak

Tsitsipas, ranked No 12, will face Australian Alex De Minaur, the No 3 seed, next. The Greek came back from 5-2 down in the tiebreak and said it was not easy coming out of that situation.

“It’s not an easy mountain to climb being 5-2 down and having your opponent serve twice,” Tsitsipas said as quoted by the ATP site. “It’s quite an incredible comeback to be honest in this part of the match, especially when the momentum shifts and changes so quick after serving for the match. It’s something that you do not expect and there’s definitely a lot of doubt creeping through your mind. I think at this particular moment I was just able to compose myself really well and I refused to go to a third set, which was very important.”

The Greek won against Russian Roman Safiullin (6-3, 6-4) ahead of his victory.

In the previous round of the Acapulco tournament, Cobolli, ranked No 69, won against Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime (2-6, 6-3, 6-2).

Acapulco ATP 500, other second-round results (Princess Mundo Imperial Resort, hard, USD 2.206.080, most recent results first):

• Casper Ruud vs. Dusan Lajovic
• Aleksandar Kovacevic vs. Holger Rune
• Ben Shelton vs. Matteo Arnaldi: thursday
• Miomir Kecmanovic beat Daniel Altmaier: 6-4, 6-4
• Dominik Koepfer beat Frances Tiafoe (8): 6-4, 5-7, 6-1
• Alex De Minaur beat Sebastian Ofner: 6-1, 6-3
• Jack Draper beat Yoshihito Nishioka (LL): 6-3, 6-0